The Dirt Road
by quotient
Summary: SPN xover with The Stand. The world is ending, a battle is beginning, and Sam Winchester has only one goal: find Dean.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Well, not long ago, I wrote a fic called wear my boots into the ground as a one-shot. Then this happened. I have no idea where this is going or what I'm doing with it. You don't need to be familiar with either that story or The Stand to get this, but I would highly recommend The Stand anyway because it's awesome.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, don't sue.

**The Dirt Road: Prologue**

Sam gets the flu in March. Jessica frowns in sympathy.

"Would you like some tea? Orange juice? Water?"

"I'm fine," Sam says and sneezes. He's trying to pull on his coat. Twirling around, he fails to catch the other sleeve.

"You're not seriously thinking of going into work, are you?"

"Can't," he shivers, "Can't stay home. Need the money. Gotta…"

Jess grabs his coat, sliding it off his shoulders, "Not today, Sammy." She says, "You can miss one day. You need rest."

She crawls into bed with him, later, after the light has faded, curling into his fevered body. "You'll get sick," he mutters.

"No I won't," Jess whispers. "I have amazing constitution."

~*~

June is warm in California. Sam gets home from class around two with sweat stains under his arms. Jogging up the stairs leaves him breathless. _Getting out of shape_, he tells himself as he swings the apartment door open. The sound of the television reaches him. In the kitchen, Jess is leaning her elbows on the counter watching it.

_Although the military has yet to make a full statement, rumours are circulating about the quarantine of Arnette, Texas…_

He reaches over and turns it off, even as Jess leans forward to kiss his cheek. "Ew, sweat."

"Yeah, well, not all of us have been in the nice air conditioned apartment."

She grins, "Someone's grumpy."

"Maybe someone can make it better."

This time, she pecks him on the lips. "After someone does the dishes like someone asked."

Sighing, Sam strips off his shirt. He'll do it after he showers. "What was that about, anyway?" He calls from the bedroom.

"What?"

"On the television?"

"Oh," she comes into the room. "Something happening in Texas, but what else is new?" Jess puts a hand on his shoulder, "How about pasta tonight?"

~*~

Sometime in the morning, long before sunrise, and long after midnight, his phone rings. He hears it on the cusp of waking. Then it stops and Sam falls back into the warmth of sleep.

~*~

They go to a bar a few days later. Jess drags him, actually. The air conditioner is broken, and Sam's been trying his hand at fixing it, even as Jess called the landlord. Despite the betrayal, he can't say no to the temptation of a cold drink over schoolwork in the hot apartment.

Zach smiles when he sees Sam. His eyebrows rise in mock surprise.

"Wow, the Winchester outside the library." He reaches out one hand and presses it to Sam's forehead. "You feeling okay? Not sick or anything, are you?"

"Shut up."

"Hey, I'm just concerned for your welfare, dude."

Zach knocks back a shot, then hacks into his hand, spewing vodka everywhere. Jess makes a face, pulling away.

"Jesus, that's disgusting."

"Y'alright, Zach?"

"Yeah," his face is red. "Went down the wrong throat."

_Normal_, Sam thinks, motioning the bartender for a glass of water. His own drink burns warmly all the way down.

~*~

On the wall, someone's drawn graffiti. A red eye watches Sam pass down the alley. It's dusk. Up ahead, the apartment windows are lit. He thinks he can see Jess's shadow there and then gone. The writing on the wall is shaky like a child's. _Beware the Crimson King_, it tells him. Whoever that is, Sam thinks coming to the foot of his building, he doesn't intend to be around to meet him.

When he comes in, Jess is cutting up vegetables. The radio is playing, asking baby, can you dig your man? He's a righteous man. She turns when she hears him at the door. In the light of the kitchen fluorescents, he's struck by how pretty she is. Even when she sneezes into her elbow, everything holds perfectly.

~*~

Zach doesn't make it to class on Wednesday. Sam thinks that he'll want the notes and resolves to take them to him. His cell phone rings. Several heads turn to look at him. He looks down sheepishly, fumbling desperately with it to either answer or turn off. As suddenly as it starts, it stops. He turns it off. Later, he'll get the voice mail. The professor walks in, and Sam holds his pen at the ready.

"Dude," Sam calls as he pounds on Zach's door. "I have notes for you."

The door opens slowly, and Sam pulls back at how ill he looks; the discolouration along his jaw startling against the paleness of his skin.

"Jesus," Sam breathes.

Zach nods and whispers, "Yeah." He winces in pain as he speaks.

"What is it?"

"Flu," he says and smiles wanly. "It'll pass."

~*~

_--new strain of Anthrax--_

Sam watches the traffic light. The car nearest him is blasting the news like Becky blasts house music from her stereo at parties.

--_No cause for alarm—_

It turns green, and the little yellow man appears. Just as he's about to step off the curb, he hears the telltale sound of an ambulance heading this way. He holds back, bumping into a woman and spilling the contents of her shopping bag all over the ground. Apologizing profusely, he helps her gather the stuff on the ground, shoving the bottle of cough syrup into the plastic bag as the ambulance passes. The car blaring the news follows immediately after.

~*~

He sees two military trucks the next day. Surprised, he stares until they disappear around the corner. Afterwards, Sam thinks the back of the trucks were too shadowed for him to be certain the occupants were wearing gas masks, but the image sticks with an eerie certainty in his head.

~*~

The professor doesn't show up the following class. After twenty minutes, Sam packs his bag back up and leaves. He debates about swinging by Zach's, but instead heads down to the library. Four ambulances and three cop cars pass him, all headed in different directions. For the first time in months, Sam finds his mind actively returning to Dean and Dad and what he'd last heard of them. It unnerves him. Readjusting his backpack on his shoulder, he hunches down, bracing himself for something he can't see coming. The library is closed when he gets there.

Work calls him. He puts the phone to his ear, listening to his boss ask him if he could take a shift on short notice. Jess will be peeved, he knows even as he accepts. The money is always useful, though, and with the library closed, he can't get any research done for his paper anyway.

"Fine, go," Jess says. She's still in her pyjamas and her nose looks red and raw. "I'm going to bed."

"I'll bring you some tea."

She grunts, shuffling off to the bedroom, stopping long enough to sneeze into her hands.

It's a slow night, and Sam spends most of his time watching the clock on the wall. At one point, he flicks on the radio.

_--gunshots. They say…they say…We appear to have lost Gary, people. Riots like these haven't been seen since—_

Changing stations, Sam settles on the familiar opening chords of AC/DC's _Highway to Hell_. It fades in and out like the station can't quite hold the signal. Bon Scott warbles over the static: the voice of a dead man. After only the second verse, Sam turns the radio off. There are goose-bumps along his arms. He takes out a rag and rubs down the counter for the fifth time. There are no customers for the rest of his shift.

~*~

The shower's running when he gets home. Sam pulls his shirt off in the living room. It clings to him, scratchy and uncomfortable against his sweaty skin. His jeans come next. He flings them over the back of the couch.

"Jess?" he calls. The shower doesn't falter. It fills the apartment, steady and understandable in its consistency. "Jess?"

In the kitchen he pours himself a glass of water. From outside comes the noise of sirens and something akin to fireworks. Sam turns on the television but there's only the news; men and women in suits and ties who smile shakily at the camera. He turns it off.

"Jess?"

The glass clinks when he puts it on the counter. Even dressed only in his boxers, the apartment still feels too warm. Absently he thinks the landlord hasn't been in to fix the air conditioning like he promised. Then he's in the bedroom and the shower is loud this close, the bathroom door open, letting the sound out. Jess is on the floor, naked, one arm out straight so that the back of her hand is on the floor of the bedroom.

"_Jesus_," Sam lifts her up before he realizes he shouldn't have moved her, just in case. She burns against his skin. "Jess? Jess, can you hear me?"

"Sam?" Her voice is hoarse and her eyes, opening a crack, are fever bright. "Sam?"

"Yes, yeah. It's me. Jesus, what happened?"

She shifts in his arms. "He was in the mirror," her eyes slip shut. "He was in the mirror."

_She's delirious_, he thinks, shushing her. Is it possible to be this warm and not cooking from the inside out? Gently, he carries her back into the bedroom.

"He was in the mirror," Jess is mumbling, "Grinning at me…"

Sam grabs the phone from the bedside table. The sound of sirens fills the night even as Sam dials 911. It's busy. Biting his lip, he pulls on another pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a pair of shoes, and wraps Jess in her bathrobe. In his arms, she dangles like a raggedy-Anne doll.

~*~

Jessica Moore does not make it to the hospital.

~*~

Back down a narrow alley, then out into a wide side street, a screen door is improperly latched. At the first bit of a breeze, it opens wide, letting whatever wants to, in. Up two flights of stairs the sound of a ringing phone echoes out from an apartment onto the deserted landing. An answering machine clicks on and takes the message. It continues to do so dutifully until a few days later when the phone lines go down. Still, it holds its messages until the power fails and they're lost. In the bathroom, the shower water, long since run from hot, to warm, to cold, leaks through the floor into the apartment underneath. Eventually the water mains shut down, and the water turns off suddenly, leaving only a small drip from the shower head that fades and finally stops. But the damage is done, and the mildew starts to grow underneath the floor.

Outside, the summer heat wave continues, cut only by the occasional breeze off the coast. It carries dust on its back instead of salt, thick and heavy in the warm air. The streets remain deserted with only the bloated rats slinking under the protective shadow of the night. At the first sound of footsteps, they flee back into the cracks they came from. Only a crimson eye, crudely painted on a wall bares witness to a human visitor, a man dressed casually in jeans and cowboy boots who whistles cheerily amongst the dead. He steps into an apartment building and back out a few moments later, disappearing down the street. Soon enough he's gone like he's never been there. For all the crimson eye knows, he never was.


	2. Chapter 2

California is a dead place. Every step he takes echoes terribly as he walks amongst the corpses of cars and people. Occasionally he hears the scuttling of rats somewhere in the darkness. Around him the birds scrounge the human bodies, eating eyes and bugs indiscriminately. When he sleeps, Sam dreams pleasant dreams. Jess is there. They're all there, John and Dean and even the elusive Mary around a table. It's Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or Easter with a massive turkey as the centrepiece. John carves, sharpening the knife—painful _rasprasp_ of metal on metal—before slicing through the juicy meat with an accomplished ease. Red wine is passed around, thick and tangy.

"To us," Mary says.

Sam raises his glass as Jess places her burning hand on his thigh, under the table where no one else can see; squeezing, releasing, squeezing, releasing. The heat bleeds through his skin.

~*~

He has never thought of a city as big.

After growing up on the road with landscapes flying by the window, geography on a map loses its meaning. The world is big, but now the clogged roads and looming, empty buildings tell a different story. Palo Alto has changed, lost its vibrancy even in the sunlight. A monster, Sam thinks, that has swallowed him whole. He is in the belly of the whale and he has to get out.

Some of the road signs are graffitied, nihilistic humour covering the miles. Numbers bigger than Sam can walk in a day begin to add up.

Maybe because it's training—_go North, _his dad said, _if you ever get lost in the woods you go North_—but he orients himself, follows the empty miles. After the fifth or six day, he breaks into a shoe store. His feet are blistered horribly. Days from the twenty-minute trek to the hospital.

_I was going to marry her_, Sam thinks dumbly as he searches the backroom for shoes that will fit his feet. _I was going to marry her_. He finds a pair of Nike's, remembers how Jess refused to wear them. _Child labour_, and does it matter anymore? There's moleskin behind the counter. Sam treats his feet, covering the blisters with a healthy glob of polysporin and tapes the moleskin firmly before he pulls on the new shoes. When he leaves he shuts the door. The closed sign flutters against the broken glass.

~*~

He sleeps outside. It's just the beginning of summer and the weather is warm. Sam doesn't notice the smell.

~*~

There's a car on the road—vintage. In his seat, a driver rots, his hands still gripping the steering wheel. Sam pauses for a moment, puts his hand on the glass. This one is different but he doesn't know why. It comes through the fog. Jess is dead. Palo Alto is dead. The world is dead.

_I left the shower on,_ Sam thinks.

He pulls back his fist to hit the window, feels the instinctive pause. No hospitals for a broken hand. Sam stares at the corpse. It's his brother on some forgotten road probably still behind the wheel of the Impala. Even in death Dean wouldn't give it up. Sam knows him too well.

Instead, he presses against the glass with his fingers spread wide. His eyes envision a map of crisscrossing lines with no end. Taking a breath, Sam turns, leaves the corpse and his car, keeps walking. Behind him Jess is still where he lost her; burnt ashes on the wind.

~*~

Little things begin to filter through. There is a shadow. Something he can't see. He takes a backpack, fills it with essentials. The power has gone out and anything not canned has gone bad. Strange how quickly everything goes.

He's shoving some supplies into the bag when he sees something move out of the corner of his eye. In the glass of the freezer door (the smell of bad milk sickeningly strong) he thinks there's a man. But it's just the shape of stacked cans, still and unassuming. Sam takes several containers of salt, stores them with the knives.

That night his dreams aren't pleasant but he can't remember why. In the daylight the ravens and crows gather too close. He feels like they're watching him.

~*~

One day, he crosses the bridge. The cars stretch the length of it. Sunlight glints off the metal blinding him. He has to pause in the middle, readjusting his backpack and taking a sip of bottled water. From where he is, Sam can look straight across the water. A seagull coasts on a current of air with a long lonely squawk. Hair gets into Sam's eye. Down below the water is blue, blue, blue and if he looks up, he knows he'll see the same.

~*~

The first living person he sees is just outside Union City. She's still dressed in her uniform, the gun held steadily in her hands. He can tell by the way she's standing that she'll shoot if necessary. Sam doesn't blame her.

"Who the hell are you?"

He holds up his hands, "Sam. My name's Sam."

She nods, "You one of those psycho-freaks who's gonna kill me if I don't shoot you?"

"No. But if I were, would I tell you?"

Grinning, she drops the gun down, "Nope. Camilla." She gives a little wave with one hand.

"You're with the army."

"Was with the army." Camilla slips the strap of the gun over her shoulder. "Not really an army to be with anymore."

"What happened?" Sam asks.

Camilla shrugs, "The end of the world. What do you think?"

~*~

She's set up a camp for herself in someone's house. Linens cover the floor and Sam realizes she sleeps in the living room, hasn't even bothered with the beds upstairs.

"Don't know where they went," she explains as she opens a can of peaches. "There really wasn't any place around here…Canadians would shoot you at the border and we'd shoot you too. But the place is deserted and that's good enough for me." She hands him the can with a spoon. "Gotta say, you're the best thing I've seen in a long time. I was with my unit…but Mayers died two weeks ago and after that…"

Sam nods.

"Headed off on my own, found this place and holed up. There were still people…but…you know what I mean."

He doesn't. The peaches are sweet on his tongue. She is everything Jess wasn't, small, dark skinned with a vicious, practical sense. Economical, Sam thinks, watching the way she works on another can, this time pineapple slices, twenty-five percent less sugar.

"Don't talk a lot do you?" she asks. "Just my luck, huh? Come across the quiet guy."

"You could have come across a crazy."

"Hey, don't know you that well yet." Camilla eats a slice with her fingers, takes a sip of the juice straight from the can. "Where'd you come from?"

"Palo Alto."

Camilla freezes with another slice of pineapple halfway to her mouth. Her dark eyes widen slightly. Then she drops the pineapple back into the can and it's loud in their sudden awkward silence. Sam wants to know what she has to say.

"I'm sorry." She finally says, standing up and smoothing her pants awkwardly.

"Why are you sorry?"

"With the army, remember? I know what was goin' on that way."

"I don't blame you."

Camilla flashes her teeth in a tired grimace, "Everybody blames the army. They say we started it." She looks restless, her weight shifting from foot to foot. "Beats me if it's true but…" Sitting down again, Camilla picks back up her pineapples. "Who cares, huh? Who's here to?"

~*~

She sleeps on the couch, gives him pillows and a blanket for the floor. Sam's surprised at how trusting she is, a strange man in a world where no matter how loud you scream, only the dead will hear. A part of him understands. It's the little pull in his stomach when he saw her with her gun: the relief that he's not the only one.

Other people survived. Lacing his fingers under his head, Sam turns the words over in his head. Camilla is a smart woman, knew when to get out. There are a lot of people Sam knows who are smart like that, living under the radar. They're the ones who would see something like this coming while the rest of the world turned its head. Hunters would survive this in their special bomb-shelters-for-Armageddon ways.

Camilla starts to snore. It's small and unassuming but the loudest thing Sam has heard for weeks. He takes a breath and holds it.

_Dean_ would survive this.

All Sam has to do is find him.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Thank you kindly to those of you who have reviewed. I greatly appreciate it.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine, please don't sue.

**Chapter 3**

There's this place they go when they go camping. A shack, really, with its small living space and single bedroom separated by half-wall and half-cloth. Before taking the trails for a weekend of training, there will be a night in the big bed. His brother curled up beside him snoring into his pillow even as Sam watches the shadows for the things he knows they will eventually face. Their father is camped on the floor nearest the door, just in case. At dawn, mere minutes from when Sam finally falls asleep, he will wake them both up, large hands gentle on young shoulders.

~*~

"You're nuts."

"There have to be others," Sam says reasonably. "There's us."

"Yeah, there's us." Camilla's lips thin, "But I haven't seen _anyone_ else out there worth meetin' up with."

"Why me?"

"I had a gun," she reminds him. "When I saw you, I had a gun…and you looked like a college kid, if you know what I mean."

A rueful smile twists his mouth, "I know what you mean."

There's sunlight filtering in through the curtains. On his tongue, the morning breakfast of canned food has an underlying hint of rotting bodies. The smell permeates, becomes the undercurrent to everything he sees in Camilla's camp. He doesn't know how he hasn't noticed how strong it is before.

"Do you even know where your brother might be?"

_No_, Sam thinks. "There are places…"

Camilla was awake before him, that morning. He'd found her in the backyard of the house doing push-ups.

"Places," she repeats. When she nods her head, it's really calling him insane. "Right, that makes sense."

"We had systems in place, in case stuff like this happened."

Now her face turns sour, her words bitter. "You had plans for the apocalypse."

It's so absurd how she says it in the living room of a stranger's house. Funny how even after the end of the world all of Sam's answers are still harder than most.

~*~

Between them there is restlessness. The days represent prolonged periods of nothingness. No cars on the road, no children in the parks, just the birds and the rats outside. Standing by one of the windows, for the first time in weeks, Sam lets himself recognize everything he's missing.

Since leaving Dad and Dean the subtle itch of transience has died. One goal exists, simple, significant in its unimportance: a family, a house, a job. And, perhaps it is because that goal can't exist anymore, or because of something else, Sam feels it again looking out at the deserted street. _Time to go_, it whispers, _now, now, now_.

"You feel it, too," Camilla says that night. She's rolling a cigarette between her fingers nervously. He doesn't know if she smokes. It's been two days together and he hasn't seen her light one once. "Christ."

"I'm going to find my brother," Sam says.

"Yeah, you already said that." She sighs heavily, "I think you're nuts."

"You could always shoot me."

"For all I know you're the last man on earth. I'm not about to give that up just yet."

"Do you believe me?"

"No," Camilla admits. "And I think your brother's dead."

She doesn't say _but I'll go with you anyway_ because he can already tell they're getting ready to leave. Something else is in the air. It's dark and it's too close for comfort. Unconsciously Sam casts a glance in the direction of the window. In the total darkness of the dead world there's nothing to see. He's grateful.

~*~

Masses and masses of people swarming the building. How quickly things went to Hell, the cars, the fires, the army in their masks. _Remain calm. There is no reason to panic. Go home and lock your doors._

The steady _rattatatat_ of machine guns when they opened fire.

~*~

Backpacks slung over their shoulders, they leave the house one morning. Camilla almost looks reluctant. He watches her shut the door firmly. Sam has an absurd image of them as a married couple, off on a weekend getaway.

Camilla carries her gun like she's in a war zone.

Neither of them has spoken about where exactly they're going. Sam wonders if they both have a different destination in mind because he doubts she has any interest in Dean. Who he is, what he does, how he would survive the end of the world. These are the questions that kept, _keep_ Sam up at night. The elusive truth his brother represented about the past and the future. Those times he'd embody their dad, or maybe their mother, gentle hands with vicious teasing. Was there a person underneath the puppet?

"There are places," Camilla says casually, "that might have people. You know, like disease control centres." She puckers her lips in thought. "We had a radio and we tried the different channels when the main ones started going dead. Last time we heard something, though, had to be, what, a week before Mayers?"

That name again. Sam thinks about Jess when he asks, "What about cell phones? You think we could still call them?"

"The towers are still up…so are the satellites so I guess signals could still be sent. But there's no power to _send_ the signals."

"Hmm," Sam says.

~*~

"I think we should at least get out of California," Camilla suggests when they take a break. She hands him a bottle of water.

"Probably."

"From there we can figure out what exactly we want to do."

"I know what I want to do." Giving him a look, she stands up moving off among the cars. "Where are you going?"

"To the bathroom. You're welcome to join me."

His laughter surprises him. It's genuine.

~*~

Back in Palo Alto the streets are even emptier than before if that's possible. No cars, no bodies, but no rats, either, or birds. All the buildings stand untouched and it's as though the world has simply moved on leaving everything else in its wake.

Sam recognizes where he is, knows where he's going. But somehow he understands that it's not exactly what he remembers. The keys in his pocket jingle with each step. Empty windows watch him as he readjusts his backpack on his shoulders. His books are heavy, weighing him down, making him move in slow motion.

_Jess will be home_, something whispers. Yes, he thinks, as his foot lands on a discarded wristwatch, she'll be asleep.

No. That's wrong.

Something moves out of the corner of his eye. Casting an uneasy glance in the direction, Sam feels a cold chill snaking up his spine. His feet have taken him to the shortcut. _I don't want to go this way_, he thinks but he keeps walking. Without the streetlamps, Sam can't make out the graffiti. Behind him there are footsteps, steady and loud in the silence. If he can get to the apartment before those _(cowboy boots)_ footsteps catch up to him, then he'll be safe.

This time his feet listen to him and he runs, the weight of his backpack trying to slow him down. He yanks his keys out of his pocket as he bursts out of the alleyway, pulling open the main door and taking the stairs two at a time.

But the apartment door is already open.

"Jess?"

He can hear the shower running.

"Jess?"

_--In the mirror, grinning at me--_

Now he can see the bathroom door is slightly ajar. Somehow Sam's crossed the threshold. One hand is out in front of him because he needs to open the door further because Jess might be hurt, might be dying--

_Already dead_

--And he needs to get to her, needs to--

-- it grabs him, rotting face, glowing eyes--

_He'll die_

~*~

Camilla is holding a cigarette, unlit, watching him. "Nightmare?"

"Do you smoke?" he asks. Sam's throat is dry.

"No. Though this'd be the time to start."

For a moment Sam can't figure out why he can see so well before he understands the strange cold light is from the moon, bright like when he and dad and Dean would go camping. A little shack in the woods they could only reach by following a narrow dirt road.

"Yeah," Sam answers finally. "Nightmare."

Moonlight makes the world surreal. Camilla's dark eyes consider him and for the first time since he's met her, Sam understands that she has a gun and he doesn't. He looks away.

In his sleep he's destroyed his circle of salt. Glistening on the pavement, the small crystals are useless, now.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N**: I want to thank everyone for their reviews. I do read them, and although I'm horrible at replying, they honestly mean a lot to me, and I appreciate the time taken to comment. Special thanks to ysbail, who this story was written for, PA Davis, and Aurilia. Thank you.

**Disclaimer: **None of this belongs to me, please don't sue.

Chapter 4

The Impala would fly on this road, Sam thinks. For now there is an absence of cars, room to breathe. He can imagine the way the car would purr as Dean pressed his foot down on the pedal; certain power jolting only slightly when he shifted gears. This moment, here and now, Dean would have the windows rolled down, his music on, something loud, obnoxious, the drum and guitar caught between each other.

"What are you thinking about?"

"How I wish we had a car," Sam says.

Camilla nods in agreement. All of this space is just temporary. Already in the distance Sam can see the outline of a vehicle half-on, half-off the road. But he still thinks about the time—_he'll die—_they're losing even as they put one foot in front of the other.

"Hey," Camilla points at the shadow. It's big, Sam notices, a truck, not a car. "It's army."

"So?"

She steps up her pace. As they draw along side the wrecked truck, Sam considers it; how the back is angled awkwardly into the air. Camilla has dropped her pack, lifting herself into the back. The people are all gone. Sam doesn't know what she's looking for. He stands on the road, a useless sentry.

"Nope," she says a few minutes later as she crawls out. "Bust."

"You're bleeding."

"Yeah," she answers looking at the thin red line on her arm. "There was some broken glass. It's not bad. Just a scratch."

"What were you looking for?"

"Wanted to see if there was a radio or something."

"Was there?" From where he stands, the truck looks empty: no packs, no guns, no supplies.

"Like I said. Bust."

He pulls out some anti-septic and gently cleans the cut for her. When he goes to bandage it, though, she pulls away. "Best to let it breathe."

Sam watches her pick up her pack and start walking. How many times had he wanted out of that car? When he was little, he'd get sick and he'd beg to walk, just for a little, just to get some air. He readjusts his own bag, looks at the truck, deserted and useless, looks back at Camilla. _Bust_, he thinks.

~*~

_He'll die_

"What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

"Yeah," she says.

They never talk at night, not like they do in the day. Just in case.

"How's your arm?"

"Fine."

Sam sees Dean in the dark. Lying on his back with his hands clasped behind his head, wide green eyes watching the sky, Dean is nothing more than a child in a man's body. Nothing more than a childish imagining.

~*~

It rains all night. They sleep curled into each other. Her skin feels warmer than his. They dream together and neither of them knows what the other is seeing.

~*~

Suddenly Camilla stops. It's as though she's suddenly encountered an invisible barrier, eyes wide, face stricken. Sam reaches out a hand to her, unsure.

"Camilla?"

Her breath quickens. There's a twitch in her muscles and Sam's reminded of a mouse holding still under an eagle's focused glare.

"I…" she says.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't…"

"Camilla?"

She's shaking her head back and forth like a child. That sense that she's really screaming, somehow, in a way more primitive than sound, makes his hair stand on end. Frowning, Sam stands behind her small frame and stares in the same direction. It's another stretch of road. Over the days the road remains their constant: a conveyor belt, with the scenery around them shifting steadily. There were signs, exits and warnings. At one point they passed a construction zone, _detour twenty miles_.

What is it she sees?

He bends lower, cants his head, squints, but there's nothing to see.

"I can't see anything."

For the past several days they've been walking eastwards, sticking mostly to the back roads. Both of them are in good shape and he figures they're covering almost ten miles (give or take) a day, more on days where they both have nightmares and wake before dawn. Soon, if Sam's reckoning is right, they'll reach the state border, although they'll have to stock up on water.

Abruptly, Camilla takes a deep breath. "Sorry," she says. Her voice is small in a way he's never heard before. "I'm sorry."

"Hey," he puts his hand on her shoulder. "Hey, it's okay."

She's crying he realizes with a start. Not sobbing, but weeping, her shoulders shaking under her pack and her face, originally staring into the distance now covered by her hands. All this time Sam's never seen her cry. Maybe this is where she breaks, where she's reached her limit coming up on a construction zone somewhere near the Nevada/California line. He wraps himself around her and her pack awkwardly and knows that's wrong.

"Shh…" he whispers, staring ahead, trying to see what it is that—_grinning at me—_scared her so badly.

When she finally takes her hands away, her face is splotchy, almost flushed, and her eyes are red. Using a sleeve, she wipes the snot from her nose. Camilla is still muttering apologies as Sam lays his hand on her cheek. It's warm.

~*~

Bobby would know what to do. And that's what Dean will need, someone who knows what to do. It's where he'll head first. Afterwards to Pastor Jim, or is Caleb the better option? No, maybe Caleb first and then Bobby…

All he has to do is find Dean. But where would Dean go? What's left for Dean to go to?

"We can't go through Nevada," Camilla tells him, her voice is hoarse.

"It's the quickest way to South Dakota."

"That where your brother is?" Tilting her head up to look at the stars, she takes a sip of water then suddenly spits it out in a coughing fit. Sam slaps her on the back.

"Went down the wrong throat." She meets his eyes. "That's where _he_ is."

"Who?"

"You _know_ who."

"What did you see, Camilla?"

"He lies, Sam." She stretches out on the ground beside him. "Whatever it is you're seeing…he lies."

~*~

Even the way he stands is jaunty, nonchalant, that guy in the room everybody wants to meet: a rock star, but so much more. When he smiles his blue eyes twinkle. It reminds Sam of Dean on those rare occasions when they had a night on the town, just the two of them with the whole world at their feet--

_C'mon Sammy, we'll have a hell of a time_

--Sixteen again, trying to be an adult, trying to get away through school but still a Winchester, always a Winchester in all the ways that counted: the little jokes between them, the drills, the isolation. Those twinkling eyes are the best memories Sam has.

They're also the worst.

~*~

When he wakes up, Camilla is gone; up north towards Oregon, or down south to cut through Arizona. Sam thinks he could catch up with her if he tried.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: This one's longer than the last. And just so everyone knows, I don't know what I'm doing with this, so really, we're all in this together.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

**Chapter 5**

Although the state line is nothing more than a sign announcing _Welcome to Nevada_, the air is different on the other side. It's heavier, oppressive, carrying the dry smell of sand. This is the edge of the desert. Sam readjusts his pack and moves on.

~*~

This is what Dean does.

He leaves the apartment the same way he found it. The Impala turns north, nudging its way along empty side streets, rolling over rotting corpses. Remnants of military vehicles, big grey, green, black trucks rest on curbs. It's not hard to piece together what's happened here.

_Stay calm. No need to panic. Return to your homes. _

Not with the abandoned weapons, the scattered casings.

_Gotta get to a hospital—_

_Sir, we're asking you to stay back._

At one point, Dean stands next to a 2002 BMW lying on its side while he siphons gas out of the tank of a nearby SUV. What happened here, he thinks even though he already knows. The gas when it touches his tongue is awful. Dean spits several times on the pavement.

~*~

The desert is one of the most dangerous places on earth. Unassuming and quiet, the land stretches beyond comprehension, interrupted only by the existence of would-be mountains and perpetually dying shrubs longing to be trees. Between towns, cities, gas stations, there is only the dark pavement to distinguish a careful route. Cars, to and from Reno, Carson City, Las Vegas, with heavy tires, kept the drifting sand at bay. Now, even in the few weeks since those same car engines have failed untended in the summer heat, already its creeping back in. Dust burying the asphalt and the dividing yellow line.

A few tracks lead out towards rising rocks; lizards, rabbits, and coyotes unaware of changes in the status-quo, seeking their own peace far from manmade things. He passes a dead coyote lying on its side. All of its limbs are missing. Its dry tongue protrudes from its mouth. Then again, Sam thinks maybe the rabbits and lizards and coyotes know better than anyone what's going down.

~*~

Oregon is where he's headed. Sam isn't stupid enough to pass anywhere near Vegas and what's living there. Neither is Dean.

One night, he sleeps in a house somewhere outside Union City. The door is open. Two stories high with three bedrooms and a walk-in closet, two useless washrooms, one upstairs and one on the main floor. Lace curtains hang in the window. He finds the linen shoved into a cabinet above the bathroom sink. In the kitchen, there is a door to the basement. Dean stands in front of it for a little while—_what if Sammy's down there_—before he settles down for the night. Even from there, he can still smell it, faint against the mustiness of the house. Did they think they could block it out? That the flu would be stopped by a lock?

As the daylight fades, Dean can hear them. At one point the basement door opens; the creaking of the hinges, the bottom of the door not quite clearing the floor. Around him in the dark, they shuffle, blind, perhaps, their eye eaten away by hungry bugs. Dean shuts his own eyes so he doesn't have to see them. Hours later, morning comes and he leaves, blankets on the floor, the salt still perfectly in place. Outside he almost lights a match, but summer is here and there's no one to stop the fire if it spreads.

Afterwards, he sleeps in the backseat of the Impala, breathing in the familiar scent of old leather, or outside, camped under the overly-bright stars. With his fingers threaded behind his head, he feels like a little boy again, bright-eyed in a world of darkness. And then, because the world is quiet and Dad is dead and Sam is missing, Dean remembers the cabin John Winchester used to rent.

The last time they were there was after Dean was released from the hospital when a poltergeist pushed him down the stairs. His dad had laid a hand on his shoulder and said _getting sloppy_ in that half-mocking, half-serious tone of voice. Sam carried Dean's pack all the way up the dirt road, in his quiet, sullen, teenaged way. Two days later, they were in the woods, just Sam and Dean and Dad, training and relaxing, not bothering with the tent in the clear, warm summer weather. The way it should be.

~*~

An Exxon stands a quiet vigilance on its concrete platform. Out front is a motorcycle perfectly parked. All the windows of the building have been broken. Rocks are scattered on the fake linoleum floor. The magazine rack has been pushed over, but several porn magazines are strewn about. Someone has opened the register and taken the cash. There is no water.

Sam unzips around back, pissing against the off-white wall. It's when he's zipping up again that he hears it.

"Fuck that, I know what I fucking saw, Phil."

"Doubt you know a fucking thing. Ain't no one here, you jerk."

"Whatever. We're done. Nothing else we need here. Let's jet."

A pause: then the sound of a motorcycle engine. It revs a few times before it takes off. Peeking around the corner, Sam sees it, already small, disappearing down the road. He wonders where they were. He hadn't seen either of them.

_Getting sloppy_

That's dad, Sam realizes in surprise. _Getting sloppy_, he used to say.

One time, they'd been hunting a poltergeist. In Toronto when Sam had won an award for a paper he'd written. Dean sat in the back of the auditorium and left long before the ceremony was over. And then there'd been the poltergeist that Dad needed help on, both of them, when Dean had been pushed down the stairs, and Sam had been _so scared_ because _Dean wasn't moving_ and afterwards dad had said—

Sam shakes his head. It doesn't matter.

~*~

He still dreams--_I'm a hundred and eight years old, and I still bake my own bread_—but it's different now.

_They're gathering_, but Dean doesn't know what that means.

At some point, he finds another road block. It looks like there was an accident. He can't clear it by himself, and he has to backtrack. Eventually, Dean knows, he'll have to let the Impala go. The streets are packed, and who knows how long it will be before there is anyone to clear them? Still, the thought makes him panic. He doesn't notice the way his fingers clench the wheel as though he can stop the inevitable. This is dad smelling of oil and Sammy curled in the back with a book.

Several miles later, close to the California/Nevada line, Dean finds her. At first, she's nothing but a speck on the side of the road. But drawing nearer he makes out her pack, large on her small frame. She doesn't look very good, hunched forward in tattered clothes.

The sound of the engine surprises her. Dean watches the weary way she turns her head, hands clutching at air as though they're remembering something she used to hold for protection. He drives four more miles before he stops and waits for her to catch up to him.

~*~

The further south he goes, the more he notices signs. The road is cleared from wreckage and sand. At night he can hear voices somewhere in the distance. Sometimes they're laughing. It makes Sam want to cry. He's here, too. They can't see him, but he's here, too.

His skin is burnt from his travel in the hot sun. Miles and miles ahead he can make out something glowing in the distance at night. It pulls him toward it like a moth to a flame.

_Sin City, here I come_. Dean said that. On his twenty-first birthday with his shit-eating grin.

Sam's laughter sounds crazy in the desert silence. He laughs so hard he has to bend over and put his hands on his thighs. _Sin City, here I come._

~*~

She slumps in the passenger seat, head resting against the glass. Dark circles under her eyes make her older than Dean thinks she is. One arm is poorly bandaged. He can see the angry marks of infection, the tell-tale discolouration of her skin.

"I don't want to die here," she says, voice hoarse.

"Where're you from?" One had reaches out to play with the radio dial before he remembers the radio doesn't work and his tapes are still in the box under the front seat.

Dean doesn't ask for her name. He doesn't need to add to the list of people he knows on the wayside.

"I don't want to die here," she says again. It's obvious with her so close that she's delirious. "Not with Him chasing me."

"What did you say?"

"Not here. Not here." She moans, her head rolling grotesquely on her neck. "Can't you see He lies?" Her hand gropes for him and Dean instinctively pulls back. On the back of his neck, his hair stands on end. "Sam? Sam? You're not Mayers."

"What did you say?"

"Shipping out," the woman mumbles, eyes closing. "Move on out…"

Dean drives until she dies. And he even drives after, for a bit. Her face is turned away from him, but he can still make out the white of one half-lidded eye. The lips are parted slightly. Dean pushes her body into a ditch. Somehow he doubts this woman will come back, so that's how he leaves her.

~*~

They don't speak His name. This group Sam has found, some men and women who cluster around a small cooking stove during the summer nights. One of them heats cans of beans for everyone in the pressing silence.

The man says, "I don't know what's made us come this way."

Sam meets his eyes. "I'm looking for my brother." That's his reason. That's why he is in the desert. Because Dean is here, and that's all that matters.

"No you're not," another man says around a mouthful of beans. "Maybe it makes you feel better, thinkin' that, but you're no better than the rest of us, Sam. You're going for the same reason we all are."

"What's that?" asks another girl. She's younger than Sam; can't be more than fifteen or sixteen.

The cook of the evening shakes his head as though he doesn't know the answer. But they all know it. In little cracks and dark corners, everyone knows why they're really heading west.

~*~

Around it, the woods are deep and thick during the summer time but dead and empty in winter. Then the snow buries the land, crushing shrubs and freezing streams and creeks. During those months, the shack was bitterly cold, the wind slipping through the cracks. Together they'd huddle on the bed, Sam and he, under the scratchy wool blanket, their teeth chattering. Sometimes Dean would sneak his icy feet up the cuffs of Sam's pyjama pants, maybe for extra warmth, maybe to hear Sam shriek in surprise. Always, by the middle of the night, John Winchester would fit in there, too, wrapping big strong arms around their shoulders.

His knees give out and he falls heavily to the wooden floor. The same place John Winchester used to sleep. Dean curls up. Sweat drips down his forehead but he's so cold his teeth are chattering.

_Looks like this is it,_ he thinks, pressing his face into the cabin floor. _I can't move._

~*~

Under the impossibly bright lights of Las Vegas, Nevada, surrounded by people he's never known, Sam Winchester opens his eyes.


End file.
